Do a checkdisk, to check that drive is fine.
All is now ready to do the Ubuntu Installation.
Section B – Ubuntu Setup, Config:

Step 1: Install
Boot from Ubuntu CD, select second option (Install)

When asked where to install, select “largest unpartitioned space”.
This is the only dangerous part – where you could potentially overwrite your Vista install. But if you’ve got a good, working disk image as backup, even this problem is not a big deal. Just a waste of time.

Step 2: Get on LAN (wired) and do first round of updates

When Ubuntu comes up, plug into wired LAN, check it’s working by browing to a favourite page.
Do this at a site where you have a direct connectino to the Internet. Going through proxies may or may not give you problems with the updates and Add/Remove programs.

Accept updates. There will be lots, and it’ll take a while. But let this finish before you try do anything else like Run the Synaptic Package Manager (System/Add and Remove)

You’ll need to reboot after the updates are done.

Step 3: Get wireless working

After a bit of waiting (perhaps click on Add/Remove programs, and accept updates to Synaptic Package Manager to pass the time, or help bring the notification up), a notification icon appears in the system task bar (next to bluetooth) saying “New Dsrivers Avail” and looks like an NIC.

Click on that, and you get a dialog box titled “Hardware Drivers” It lists the Broadcom B43 wireless driver – exactly what I need. I check the “enabled” box, and get a dialog box asking if I want to enable driver. There’s something about proprietary firmware that cannot be shipped with the OS. I click on the button labelled “Enable”

The package downloads and installs. There’s another box, labelled “Configuring b43-fwcutter” – and I have to check “Fetch adn extract firmware?” and click “Forward” button. Installation continues. Then Configuration. There’s a note that it could take some time, and to please wait. Good thing it says so, because it really does take a while, with no movement of the progress bar. Clicking on the details arrow helps – lots of HTTP requests going out, files being downloaded and progress is slow, but happening.

After completion, I click close, then click on the network icon on the top right task bar.

In Add/Remove Applications, select SHOW “All available applications”
Search for SUN
Look for Sun Java 6 Runtime, Sun Java 6.0 Plugin.
Click checkbox to indicate you want this. There’s a message (something about copyright by Sun), and then let it install.

Step 5: Get Flash installed

Again, go to Add/Remove Applications. Make sure that the SHOW box has “All available applications”. Search for “flash”. Click the checkbox for Macromedia Flash plugin, and install.
Open Firefox, go to the youtube site, and test by watching a few videos.

Step 6: Add Ubuntu Restricted Extras

This install package is going to provide you with commonly used packages in teh Ubuntu multiverse repository. Meaning you’ll get access to software that should really be in the core OS, but is’nt for various copyright reasons. For eg, the common Microsoft TrueType fonts. Or MP3 and DVD playback.

There will be a message about using MS Corefonts with Xwindows – you can ignore that if you’re going to use the default graphics.

However, note that although you can use the same process for OpenType fonts (used on Mac and Vista), you’ll not see OpenType appearing in OpenOffice font lists.

Step 7: Install Google Toolbar

Before you do this, you need to install a library, or else the bookmarks will never display. And the bookmarks is one of the main reasons you want toolbar, so you can easily share links between your browsers in Vista and those in Ubuntu.

To solve the Google Toolbar bookmarks problem, open Terminal and then paste in this command:

sudo apt-get install libxul-dev libstdc++5 gcc-4.1 libstdc++6

It’ll take a while to run. Once it’s done, open Firefox, then navigate to http://toolbar.google.com
and click on the “Download Google Toolbar” button.

While at it, you might as well setup Firefox’s default start page.
I’m using http://www.google.com/ig
Makes a good companion to Google Toolbar, and easy access to Gmail and Google Docs.

Step 8: Improve Appearance

Click on System/Preferences/Appearance.
Click on the Fonts tab.
Select the radio button for “subpixel smoothing (LCDs)”. Presume this must be like Cleartype on Microsoft XP and Vista.

You will want to edit the bootmanager so that your choice of default (vista or ubuntu) can happen. The easiest way is to stay with GRUB. The other way is to use Vista’s boot manager. The instructions for the latter are here:

Hello! Thank you! I gave Jaunty a try on the hp tc4400 and you’re right – digitizer worked “out of the box”. That was a few months back, and I remember having to get some help from Ubuntu forums to get something working (I think it was the buttons – right click or something?). I took notes on the steps – must find time this weekend to update the tc4400 page. Thanks for the inspiration! I notice you’re based in Manila. I was there for a week each time in May, Jun and Jul, to work on the HP project at Centex Manila. You might have read about it in the paper or seen something about it on TV. We used Windows machines there – not linux – as they had new PCs that came with the OS preloaded.

Thanks, Deep-Thought

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